Staying Prepared: Key Manufacturing Lessons from 2022
In 2022, our most popular blogs had a common factor: proactive preparation for maintaining an efficient, sustainable and competitive manufacturing business.
From leveraging technology to being prepared for almost any mishap to boosting efficiency, manufacturing leaders are talking about tools, tech and processes that are key to readiness for success.
We’ve rounded up a dozen of our most-read posts from the year so you can garner those insights, refresh your memory or see something you may have missed.
1. Staying Competitive: The Technology Manufacturers Need to Leverage
The manufacturing industry has faced significant challenges in the last two years. But despite these obstacles, the industry is overcoming and bouncing back. But to stay competitive during this ramp-up, manufacturers must invest in new technology and learn to use it to its full potential. Take a closer look at the tools and tech your facility needs to stay one step ahead.
2. Can Enterprise Resource Planning Boost Efficiency?
Technological advancements in manufacturing (think robots and industrial manipulators) are changing how businesses operate. As the manufacturing process becomes more complex, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software can help your business become more efficient.
ERP is a management software that helps warehouses optimize their process and provides a catalog of integrated and centralized automation features. Here’s why it’s essential for modern manufacturers:
3. Streamline Your Warehouse Shipping and Receiving Areas
The holiday season means manufacturers can expect a significant increase in inventory and production needs – and your facility’s shipping and receiving areas will be busier than ever. It’s critical for manufacturers to keep a close eye on shipping and receiving productivity, which can point to your company’s performance overall.
We’re sharing tips to boost the efficiency of your shipping and receiving areas and increase employee safety.
4. How to Prepare Your Warehouse for a Recession
Many manufacturing businesses are still in the process of finding their footing after several devastating years. Unfortunately, they may not have much longer to focus on recalibrating.
Experts are anticipating a looming recession. Even if it’s mild, manufacturers can’t afford to be caught off-guard by another economic shakeup. Companies that proved resilient during 2020 were already adapting to new industry trends. And in many cases, they were already implementing several of the steps we’ve outlined below.
5. Falling Items: How to Decrease the Risk of Accidents
Focusing on ramping production has helped manufacturers recover from losses during the past few years. Unfortunately, this has led to an increase in workplace injuries like slips, trips and falls, items falling from shelves, pallet injuries or storage units falling on employees.
Don’t put your employees or your bottom line at risk. Here’s how manufacturers avoid storage and shelving accidents.
6. 4 Ways to Improve Manufacturing Quality Control
A lack of sufficient quality control can be devastating over time, as it clogs up your systems, wastes time and hurts your bottom line.
Don’t settle for poor quality control that ends up damaging your business in the long run. We’re sharing our top tips for boosting your quality control process and success.
7. Future of Manufacturing
The past two years have illustrated that success depends on how quickly you can adapt to the new systems that have become standard in the wake of the pandemic. E-Commerce is booming – which means the pressure is on for manufacturers to operate as efficiently as possible as they serve a growing marketplace with increasingly high demands.
Let’s look at best practices that will help drive a successful, smarter and more sustainable business in the months ahead.
8. Creating Your Warehouse Disaster Recovery Plan
As the manufacturing industry adopts increasingly digital technology, it’s becoming crucial for warehouses to build disaster recovery plans – a set of protocols implemented in the event of an IT emergency. This could include anything from a major data breach to weather-related incidents causing internet outages. Prolonged online downtime can be a manufacturing company’s nightmare, and recent studies show that unplanned downtime costs manufacturers as much as $50 billion a year.
To avoid potentially devastating effects, it’s time to prioritize disaster recovery.
9. Going Beyond Lean Manufacturing
Companies are turning to lean manufacturing principles to streamline production and increase efficiency. This involves rethinking traditional manufacturing practices to optimize processes and maximize value. Cellular manufacturing, or “one-piece-flow,” goes even further, offering increased efficiency and control over production.
Instead of “batch-and-queue” production, cellular manufacturing uses a line of machines and operators, all near each other – forming a “cell.” Raw materials enter this cell and emerge as a finished product. The goods are easily transferred from one machine to the next, reducing handling time and the time to complete a finished product.
How Cellular Manufacturing Makes a Difference
10. Why Preventative Maintenance is Crucial for Manufacturers
Losing time due to machine failure or disrepair is a devastating blow for manufacturers and costs industrial manufacturers an estimated $50 billion a year. How can you best avoid these costly catastrophes? Implement preventative maintenance on your facility’s machinery.
This article looks at how preventative maintenance works, what the benefits are and how to create your own preventative maintenance plan for your facility.
11. Key Tools and Tactics for Just-in-Time Manufacturing
Just-in-time manufacturing is a production model that, ideally, receives the materials necessary to complete orders as they come in instead of stockpiling components and finished products ahead of time.
Will JIT manufacturing continue to be helpful for manufacturers? Some say it’s on its way out, while others say it’s still a valid method.
If you’re considering just-in-time manufacturing or looking to optimize your procedures, you’ll need the right tools and tactics in place.
Learn More About JIT Manufacturing
12. The Consequences of Unfit Equipment
From a simple design to help humans lift and carry heavy equipment, industrial manipulators have evolved into advanced machines capable of thinking, learning, and performing countless activities more efficiently than humans. And they’ve helped increase production.
However, manipulators are not one-size-fits-all. Settling for run-of-the-mill machinery can have dire effects on your bottom line. Read on to better understand the consequences of using the incorrect equipment in your facility.
Preparing your facility and team, implementing safety protocol, optimizing your processes and preventative maintenance will keep you ahead of the competition, even when facing unexpected challenges or crises.
Part of being prepared includes investing in the right durable, high-quality equipment. At Dalmec, our industrial manipulators are designed to handle not only your materials but also the demands of a manufacturing environment. Contact us today if you’re ready to discuss what material handling devices would be ideal for your company.